


drabble collection

by jonphaedrus



Category: Final Fantasy VII, Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn, Tales of Symphonia, 逆転裁判 | Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-01-09 17:19:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 10,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jonphaedrus/pseuds/jonphaedrus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a collection of various drabbles either prompted or just written, taken from the Tumblr</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> a very gorey gross creepy sephiran thing written for rethi

Zelgius is drenched in blood, and Sephiran wonders whose it is. Ike, certainly. Soren. His own blood-and-flesh, Micaiah. Bird kings and the lion king. The last of his kinfolk, the White Prince and his siblings. As much as he hates to think it, Sigrun and Tanith, cut down for the last time.

Dear, dear Sanaki. What is necessary is necessary.

Zelgius grabs him by the waist, drops Alondite to the floor, and Sephiran falls into his arms. He tastes like victory and regret, his armour is slippery and his skin is stained red. “Yes,” he whispers, before he knows what he’s saying.

They fuck there, in the blood. It congeals under them, sticks to his skin, burns the back of his throat, makes him feel ill. But it makes him feel  _elated_  too, with the knowledge that he has achieved what he always wanted.

Zelgius worships his body, drenched in blood there at the end of the world, and Sephiran holds tight to him and if he could still sing, he would sing with elation.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a rufus thing because sometimes advent children upsets me (advent children always upsets me)

They all watched the rain fall, and Rufus stared at his hand as the black scattered on his skin melted away, like dirt after a bath. He turned his fingers, and then reached up to touch his eye, where he’d been blind for more than a year, and looked up at his Turks.

It was startling, to see them all again with both his eyes—even if his left eye was watering, unused to the brightness. Reno, scraped up as hell, a black eye forming, but grinning his stupid I-just-blew-something-up grin, and his eyes were bright. His goggles had gotten shattered on one side at some point. Rude had his hands folded in front of him, doing his best to remain as staid and impassive as he ever was, but he was smiling. Smiling wider than Rufus had ever seen him smile. There was a bloody gash on one of his cheeks and his ungloved hands were covered in bruises, white plaster and grey cement all over his suit.

Elena had one hand on her elbow, carefully holding her left arm against her side, still tender. One of her eyes wasn’t quite focused, and the plaster on her cheek had started to soak red. But she was smiling, even if it was weak. She was alive. They had made it in time. And Tseng—

Tseng was leaning slightly toward Elena, still ginger on his feet. The bandages around his forehead were thick and the gash on his cheek was surrounded by fine nicks. His right hand was tucked up into the pocket of his pants, carefully not letting it hang loose. Rufus could see by the bandages around his left wrist that there was more under his coat, darker in a few places with dried bloodstains. But his dark eyes are bright with something else, something Rufus hasn’t seen in his face for a long time.

Happiness.

It’s been years since it rained in Midgar, or even out here in what was now Edge, but it was raining now. Maybe not quite rain, but something else, something close. Almost as soon as it had come, though, the sunlight was breaking back through, and for the first time in over a year Rufus Shinra slid carefully out of the damned wheelchair.

He saw Elena half move forward, but then she froze again, as he carefully regained his legs, balanced. He breathed, slow and deep. It had been a long time.

Rufus opened his eyes, and smiled. “Let’s go.”

“Yes sir, Mr. President!” They all said it in their own ways, but Reno added a whoop, and they all loaded into the helicopter, Rufus most carefully of all, and as Reno piloted them away, Rufus sat in the cargo hold, buckled in, next to Tseng, and watched out the window.

When nobody was looking, he took Tseng’s hand, and Tseng held tight back. Brushed his thumb over the back of Rufus’ knuckles where until half an hour ago there had been the black burn of the Geostigma.

Tseng leaned slightly closer after a moment, and Rufus responded until they were leaning together, Tseng breathing shallowly against the back of his neck. He was holding himself strangely—his chest was probably bandaged under his suit. Broken ribs.

“Don’t you ever fucking do that again,” Rufus whispered, not trusting his voice to remain even, no matter how soft it was. Tseng nodded, very slightly, his hair shifting over his shoulder. “This is twice now, and it better not happen again.” He had barely been able to handle it when Reno and Rude had come back, looking haunted, holding the fucking black box, and Reno had whispered that Kadaj and his gang had Tseng, had Elena, and Rufus had listened to the recording from the crater. Had listened to Tseng’s pained breathing, screaming Elena’s name, the sounds of gunshots. Had wondered just how many had hit.

Had held those two bloodstained employee cards, two years old now, and felt his nails dig into his skin and tried not to think about the blood.

It had been almost as bad as when Elena had come back, before, and almost hysterically whispered that Tseng was dead. It had left Rufus cracked deep inside, between his ribs.

“Don’t jump out of any more buildings,” Tseng responded finally, “And I will stay away from anybody with silver hair.”

“It’s a deal,” Rufus murmured, and he felt Tseng smile.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a scene from the daughter of the regiment au. written for rethi.

Sanaki was spending the night over at Leanne’s, and it was therefore quiet in the house. Zelgius, in the basement, carefully hooked in another row of chains and leaned back to see what he was missing—making full sets of armour was a weird hobby, yes, but it was his hobby and he liked it.

It was quiet from upstairs, Sephiran getting in as much grading as he could before Sanaki came home in the morning, and Zelgius smiled. At a certain point, he would go upstairs. There was no daughter home, just them, and…

The first few strains of music that started to float down from upstairs caught his ear. Zelgius paused, frozen where he was. He recognised that sharp, startling violin introduction, the brass undertone, the lilting flutes. He carefully stood, and then he heard it—

Sephiran’s voice, beautiful and slow and clear, leading into his greatest song, his only song. It came out of the past, twenty years and more gone now. Zelgius walked away from his work table, climbed the stairs, slowly up until he paused in the living room.

It wasn’t the recording singing. It was Sephiran. His voice was just as beautiful as it had ever been. He was standing in the middle of the living room, his hand on his chest, keeping his breathing slow.

And then, the first high C, and—

Sephiran’s voice broke like glass shattering. He got halfway into the note, held it almost for a moment and then he went raspy and deep, petered off into hoarse silence, and his hand dropped from his chest. The recording continued, unblocked by his voice now. Zelgius remembered that night, the night he’d seen Sephiran perform for the last time, singing the very song his voice from the recording was now singing. Sephiran continued listening for a long moment of silence, and then he slowly started to cry.

His voice was a low, broken hasp as Zelgius climbed the rest of the way into the living room, went to the stereo, and hit the ‘stop’ button. The recording ended, cut off with silence, and Sephiran didn’t even look up. He just kept his face in his hands. Zelgius walked forward, carefully pulled the older man close, and held him tight. Sephiran pressed his face in Zelgius’ shoulder, fingers splayed on his bicep, and sobbed, long and low and slow, empty. His shoulders shook, he hardly sounded like himself. He was hoarse and broken, and after a moment, Zelgius carefully hugged him tighter, kissed the side of his husband’s face, kissed the tears from his skin. He moved his hand in slow circles on Sephiran’s back, let him cry, let him breathe.

"You don’t sound any less beautiful now than you did then," Zelgius whispered, finally, and Sephiran held tighter to his arm. He didn’t need to say anything.

What were you supposed to do with a bird that couldn’t sing?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> more from the daughter of the regiment au, still for rethi.

"Moving on," Sephiran set down the paper he had been lecturing from, and picked up his chalk to write the word ‘Imperator’ on the board. "The modern system of abdication can really be traced back to the Roman Empire under Diocletian, in the year 304 CE." His phone, in his pocket, started to buzz.

It was probably Tanith, calling about something she had found or that had happened that she wanted him to know about. He would call her after class, and ignored the phone.

"Before Diocletian, our records for the idea of abdication are almost nonexistant. Kurth," Sephiran turned to point at the young man.

His phone started to ring again, buzzing in his pocket. He ignored it. Maybe it was Sanaki’s school—but they had Tanith’s phone number. If she’d gotten into a fight again, they would try her Godmothers next.

"Can you tell me what, exactly, is so monumental about the abdication of the Emperor Diocletian?"

His phone rang for a third time. Buzzing, wildly, in his back pocket. For a moment, Sephiran half-frowned, but then Kurth was answering and he ignored it, let it ring out.

It rang for a fourth time. There had to be something going on. Sephiran paused and sighed—”Kurth, hold a moment,” and pulled his phone form his pocket, saw the screen.

 _Zelgius,_  read his caller ID. Sephiran froze. “I need to take this,” he said, quietly, and answered the call, pressed his phone to his ear. “Zelgius, what’s—”

"Mr. Lehran?" It was Levail’s voice.

"Levail, why are you calling me—" Levail was one of Zelgius’ senior officers and—

"Mr. Lehran, you have to come quickly. They’ve got him already, they’re taking him to Begnion Imperial Hospital and—" He felt cold. Very cold.

"Taking who where?" He whispered, brokenly.

"Chief Knight’s been shot."

He felt cold. His heartbeat was loud and his breath was shallow and rasping in his throat. His ears were rushing and. His throat felt tight. He felt sick.

"What," Sephiran whispered, hardly knowing what had come out of his mouth.

"He asked me to call you, but I haven’t heard anything yet. I haven’t even seen him since they got him in the ambulance." Without thinking, Sephiran reached for the back of the chair in front of him, his legs shaking under his weight. "You might want to—"

"I’ll. I’ll be there." The words were heavy and leaden on his tongue. Slowly, Sephiran mechanically hung up his phone. The lass was staring at him, and he only realised how cold he felt. He needed to sit down, but he couldn’t. He had to get to the hospital.

"Professor Lehran?" Kurth asked, finally, from his seat. He looked worried. "Professor are you…?"

"There’s been a…" he trailed off, his tongue and lips dry. "A family emergency. Class is cancelled." People looked at each other, but he didn’t say anything else. The students slowly started to pack up, he mechanically put his things away, bagged them, and then walked to his car.

Sephiran had almost no memory of the drive to the hospital from the moment he walked out the door to his classroom to the moment that he parked his car in the visitor lot. Mechanical motions, memorised directions. A dead-voiced call to Sigrun that had ended with her whispering her quiet affirmation to pick Sanaki up, to not say anything, not until they knew that Zelgius was all right—if Zelgius was all right—

It wasn’t until the receptionist at the visitor desk of the ICU had checked him in that it sank in, like a body hitting the bottom of a tub and washing the water over the sides. Sephiran’s strides got longer, quicker. ICU Room 37-C. ICU Room 18-A passed, Room 21-F, Room 30-D Room Room Room—

He stops at a halt that makes him feel dizzy outside 37-C. He freezes when he looks inside, and Levail stands and there’s Zelgius. His skin is a horrible, pasty white and he’s breathing unevenly, but his eyes are awake. The machines beep and Sephiran is taken back with awful, gut-wrenching certainty to the two times he’s been in that bed, when Zelgius stood where he stands now. There was an IV tree next to his bed, needles in his wrist, and his chest was bandaged all over, what was salvageable of his uniform folded on one chair. The hospital gown isn’t wide enough for his shoulders.

After a moment, Zelgius looks up at him, and his eyes go from half-dead to half-alive. His lips are dry and chapped. He looks like death warmed over, like he’s been at that precipice and he’s come back and—

"Seph," Zelgius whispers, his voice low, cracked with exhaustion, and Sephiran shatters like weakened glass. Zelgius lifted his left hand, his uninjured arm, half an inch off of the bed and Sephiran managed to make it to sitting down before he let the emotions hit him.

Levail’s footsteps out of the room were hasty, awkward. He knew he was unwanted. Zelgius’ skin was cold against Sephiran’s body, and when he buried his face in the younger man’s shoulder to bite back the tears that threatened, his skin was sticky with dried sweat. Zelgius could barely lift his arm, but he touched Sephiran’s shoulder, touched his arm, touched his back, like he was making sure they were both alive.

"Never do that again," Sephiran whispered, and his voice didn’t sound like his own. Zelgius tried to laugh, and then trailed off, rasping.

"I thought that was my line." Sephiran sat back after a moment, pressed his fingers to his eyes, wiped away any lingering moisture there, and looked at Zelgius. His hair was stuck to his skin, and Sephiran carefully peeled it away, checked his partner, gently, for anything else. Zelgius looked exhausted, his blue-green eyes nearly closed.

"What happened?" Fear assuaged, his husband alive, Sephiran gently took the younger man’s hand in his own, ran his thumbs over the back of Zelgius’ knuckles, felt the tendons leading up to his wrists. Zelgius leaned back against the pillow, hardly able to keep his head up.

"A couple of dealer’s we’ve been stalking for the last month finally got cornered. Levail called me in with another squad because they were being a nuisance." Zelgius had to pause, wet his lips, before he continued. "A couple of lucky shots. I caught three on my kevlar or—"

He didn’t have to say anything else. Or he’d be dead.

"Two in my shoulder. One almost pierced my lung."

"Are you on morphine?" Sephiran asked, looking to the bags, and Zelgius shook his head, slightly, no.

"Waiting for you. Is Sanaki…?"

"Sigrun and Tanith are picking her up. I told them not to say anything until I knew that you—"

"Talk to the doctors," Zelgius murmured. His eyes were closing. "You’ll get it figured out."

Sephiran leaned forward, kissed Zelgius, gently, once on the forehead. The younger man smiled, slightly.

"Sleep, Zelgius," he whispered, and then, added, "My brave, brave Knight."

He dropped off, and left Sephiran holding his good hand, tightly, crying silently to himself.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a not-quite canon seph/zel, written before id finished the games

Zelgius knows just how lucky he is that his armour is thick and padded, that he wears chainmail under it even if it is blessed. Ragnell could have dealt a killing blow without much effort. As it is, he’s bleeding heavily. And the castle is collapsing.

On a list of things he hates, a few top off higher than others. One of those is ‘pulling down traps on your own soldiers’. He does not appreciate the whole being-crushed-to-death-by-supposed-allies thing much as a tactic.

Then again, he’s a significantly better General than pretty much everyone else employed by Ashnard. So. Not really hard to see why he could come up with a better, less deadly, tactic.

Still, the castle is collapsing. He’s bleeding heavily—the smart thing to do would be to run back to his tent in the Begnion camp in Daein, to bind it himself.

The rubble is already collapsing downward. Something large smashes inches away from his head.

Or, he could go where he wants to.

Zelgius clutches a handful of his Warp Powder and throws it down with his last strength and thinks—

_Sephiran._

—-

The clank of armour was so loud it could doubtless be heard in the hall. It was also loud enough that Sephiran was most definitely awake. If Zelgius hadn’t already been flat on his back, he would have fallen over; his head spun with the strength the move had sapped from him.

There were a few rapid footsteps and the door into Sephiran’s inner bedroom swung open, revealing the older man standing there. His dark hair was braided for the night, hanging over one shoulder, his wings where they stuck out of his nightshirt covered by a cloak, and Creiddylad clutched in his hand. He froze for a moment, and then dropped his tome.

"Zelgius," he whispered, and ran forward to ram his hand into the handle of the door before anyone opened it. "What are you—"

"He’s better than we gave him credit for," Zelgius whispered, felt blood bubbling behind his lips. "Ragnell in his hands is—" There were footsteps outside, and Sephiran pulled the door just far enough open to poke his head through.

"Prime Minister!" A guard’s voice, just a few feet away. Zelgius could feel the blood under his chainmail moving disconcertingly. "Are you all right? We heard something."

"I’m fine, thank you for checking." Sephiran’s voice was distracted. "I simply tripped in the darkness." If he had had the energy, Zelgius would have smiled. Sephiran’s night-sight was terrible; even worse than his own. Herons weren’t meant to see in the darkness.

"Yes, sir." The footsteps receded, and Sephiran closed the door—threw the bolt home. Then he knelt and reached over, pulled the helm from Zelgius’ head, let it clang to the floor. He brushed the matted hair from Zelgius’ face, pulled his head up from the ground.

"Oh, Zelgius." His expression tightened. "I’m not strong enough." Zelgius twisted one hand behind his back and tried to push himself up, only to feel his body rebel—his stomach felt like it was ripping in two. He coughed, once, and felt blood splatter his chest. Sephiran’s jaw clenched. "Don’t move," he whispered, and Zelgius fell back to the floor as Sephiran stood, rushing back into his room, holding up his nightshirt one handed.

Laying on the floor, Zelgius thought that he had come here, and not gone back to the Begnion armies. If he had shown up on death’s door, he would have had to explain the massive gash on his chest to whoever healed him. Sephiran didn’t require explanation. Sephiran knew where he had been.

His Sage returned, this time with a staff, and Zelgius lay still while the man carefully healed him, until he wasn’t gushing blood any more, and then set the staff aside, slid one hand under Zelgius’ waist, and they worked together until he was sitting up off of the ground. “Now. What happened?” Sephiran asked, as he helped Zelgius wrench to his feet.

As soon as he was standing, the world spun terribly. If Sephiran hadn’t been there to support him, he would have gone right back down.

Looking at the floor, there was blood everywhere. It was caking his armour. It was dripping down his right hand, hanging at his side. A glance at Sephiran showed that he had spread it all over the man’s white nightshirt, splattered it onto his wings.

"Your wings—" Zelgius whispered, and Sephiran’s face twisted for a moment before he started moving to get Zelgius to his bed.

"It will come off. I’d rather have blood on my wings than have you dead on my floor." Zelgius grunted. "Tell me what happened, Zelgius." They were nearing the bed, and much to his relief, Zelgius collapsed to sit down, hissing at the tension on his newly-healed injury. Fortunately, Sephiran was already working mechanically at the straps of his armour, pulling apart the plates.

"Ike challenged me."

"He did better than you suspected."

"He’s come a very long way." Sephiran held his arm up, and Zelgius did what was expected and pulled his hand free, let the man pull off his gauntlets and vambrace, setting them aside quietly on the bedspread. Once he had time, he would have to come back and polish the armour, clean it thoroughly—no doubt the Black Knight yet had more to do. "He’s nearly as good as his father was at the height of his ability. In a few years…he likely will be better. He parted with his own injuries, but he got a lucky shot in. Then, they pulled the castle down around everyone still inside it."

"I see that," Sephiran’s voice was quiet as he traced the massive gash that Ragnell had left through the breastplate of Zelgius’ armour. His green eyes were quiet, his brow drawn low. "You’re lucky." Zelgius tried to laugh, but it came out rough and broken and he started coughing half-way through. "Don’t do that until I can get a real look at you."

"Yes, Master." Sephiran’s breath caught, and then he returned to what he was doing. Zelgius’ armour came off to lay on the bedspread, to sit on the floor, and it didn’t take too long before Sephiran had stripped him down only to his ruined shirt, the white linen stained red and ripped nearly to shreds, and his bloodsoaked breeches.

Carefully shrugging out of his shirt, Zelgius let it drop off of the side of Sephiran’s bed and finally his Sage pulled aside his ruined chainmail.

Zelgius looked down at his chainmail and hissed between his teeth. It was his normal chainmail—not Ashera blessed, as was the Black Knight’s armour. It was very well made, and Ike had practically cleaved it in two. There was a massive gash almost as long and deep as the one in his breastplate. His skin was burned slightly beneath it from the sparks that the blade had thrown up, and the mail was completely ruined. It almost fell off of his shoulders because of how badly it was cut when Sephiran started moving it.

"Oh, Zelgius…" the older man whispered, quietly, when it had fallen to the side. Zelgius swallowed once and looked up and away, tried to breathe even and not start hyperventilating.

It had been a  _very_  long time since someone had injured him to the extent Ike had done so. If the cut had been just slightly deeper, if he had been just slightly slower, or reversed in direction—he would have been dead. It would leave a terrible scar as it was, even after Sephiran’s healing. It had stopped gushing blood and closed up for the most part, though.

"I don’t dare heal it more," Sephiran murmured to himself, "Not without possibly damaging you more. It will have to do the rest on its own, when it’s this deep." Zelgius nodded and shifted slightly on the bed, trying to lean back without hurting his injury while Sephiran moved around and came back with a basin of water and a cloth, bandages and a vulnerary. Zelgius took and drank the damn thing without having to be told—Sephiran smiled at him and bent over to clean off his chest, wiping drying blood off of his skin until he was clean, and bandaged him carefully.

"I apologise," Zelgius said, finally, and Sephiran glanced up from beneath his dark bangs, his wings rustling slightly as he shifted.

"For what?"

"For coming back without your orders."

"I would rather you have come back here than for you to die at Ike’s sword or be crushed to death under falling rocks." Sephiran shook his head and his hair shifted slightly. "There are times, my General, when plans must be changed to accommodate the planners." Zelgius nodded at his words. Sephiran finished bandaging his chest and stood up to his full height again. He ran his fingers, thin and warm, through Zelgius’ hair, and he leaned forward into his Sage’s touch, eyes closed. He was exhausted, bone-tired and sore. "Rest here for the night."

"I can’t," Zelgius started to lever himself up off of the bed, and got to his feet before the bloodloss hit him again. Sephiran caught him with one hand around his waist, and he steadied himself on his Sage’s shoulder and sat down again, harder than he had expected to. "I have to get back to the army, if I’m not there and there’s an emergency—"

"In your current state, if you try that you might not survive. Rest here for the night. I’ll wake you in time to return to the army before the dawn watch changes." Sephiran bent over and kissed him on the forehead. "I can’t lose you, Zelgius." Zelgius closed his eyes, and tilted his head up when he felt Sephiran’s fingers under his chin.

Sephiran kissed him gently, slow and warm, and his lips were soft. He tasted like warmed wine—he’d probably had a glass to help him sleep. Zelgius made a soft, needy noise in the back of his throat and wrapped one hand around Sephiran’s wrist. He had missed this—he had missed Sephiran. His Sage had been travelling and he had been the Black Knight for what felt like far too long.

"Rest, my General," Sephiran whispered it and pulled away. Zelgius nodded. "You’ll be back before the dawn watch change, I promise." The bed was warm and comfortable, his body ached, and Sephiran was there. His wings whispered as he moved, feathers fluttering. It sounded like home.

Zelgius was asleep before his head even hit the pillow.

Sephiran stood over him for a long time in the darkness, and then slowly tucked the younger man in, smoothed his hair back from his face. In his sleep, Zelgius smiled.

"I do not deserve anything you give me," Sephiran whispered. He knew it to be true. He wished, terribly, that it wasn’t.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is dumb and is probably also more seph/zel for rethi. there is so much seph/zel for rethi.

At a diplomatic dinner, some fool’s mouth slips and something vicious about Branded slips forth, some nasty conjoined string of words, and nobody else would ever notice it behind his too-polite face and lying, lying eyes, but Zelgius sees Sephiran’s hand tighten around his fork until his knuckles are white under his skin, and can see the tendons in his jaw straining out from under the edge of his hair. He looks like he’s ready to break his fork in half, and he looks away from the man for a moment, trying to compose himself. He must be given credit. His smile never falters.

Zelgius means only to reach out to set his hand on the other man’s shoulder, lean over and whisper something as General to the Prime Minister, but his hand settles by habit instead on the joints of the wings trapped beneath Sephiran’s robes, and without thinking or realising, he starts to rub at the joint there, where they connect to his skin. Habit. Muscle memory. Lack of conscious thought.

Sephiran freezes up for half a moment, and then shakily his fingers start to relax around the fork. He doesn’t react otherwise, but Zelgius can feel his body loosening, the tension draining from his shoulders. His mouth twitches, just slightly. Not a smile; but close.

So, he doesn’t stop. Even though he probably should—long enough on Sephiran’s wings and the man will trap him against the sheets and ride him until they’re  _both_  bruised—Zelgius continues. He presses at the sensitive bones beneath the skin, the sore muscles around the man’s shoulderblades, the trapped joint, rolls the spar of bone that connects to the humerus of his wing, brushes at the soft feathers he knows hide beneath Sephiran’s clothes until the other man shifts slightly on his chair.

Zelgius doesn’t look down, but he knows that Sephiran is shifting because he is hard. In return, he slides his hand slightly to the side and does the same to Sephiran’s other wing, until he can hear his sage’s breath coming quiet and rough in the back of his throat.

Thank Ashera, Zelgius thinks, that the table is covered by a thick cloth. That Sanaki is distracted by chasing a snail single-mindedly around her plate. That Sephiran hides his emotions even better than Zelgius does. That his own armour does a rather good job of keeping his own current problem hidden.

He can tell when Sephiran is close. The man is almost shaking, and he swallows, once, audibly. He’s rocking nearly imperceptibly on his chair—probably grinding his length against his thigh.

Belatedly, Zelgius thinks about how ruined Sephiran’s breeches will be.

It’s not like they haven’t ruined more pairs. He lost a very nice pair that way. The stain never did come out.

It’s too late now, though. Sephiran closes his eyes for a moment, and even without any more touching than what Zelgius has done his hair is mussed and his cheeks are just  _slightly_  flushed, but that can be excused on the three glasses of wine he’s had during dinner (his tolerance is not what he would like people to believe, so it is a tolerable lie) and Sephiran finishes silently.

His fingers are white knuckled and shaking on his fork again, and he slowly sets it down as he exhales, eyes closed, and clenches his free hand on the underside of the table. Finally, he opens his eyes, and adjusts his robes. Zelgius moves his hand back and returns to his dinner like nothing ever happened, ignores his own hardness. He knows he’s about to get as good as he was given.

His sage leans over, and instead of touching him, Sephiran gets close enough to whisper into his ear—

"I am going to ride you until you bruise,"

Zelgius swallows, hard. Once. He breathes deep, and whispers back just as quietly,

"Yes, Master."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> manfred von karma says dingle dangle. that's all i wrote. for jasie.

How Manfred von Karma gave himself a serious concussion falling out of a booth in a restaurant Greg would  _never_ know but, well, it had happened. And now here they were, two days afterward, and he was still trying to recover his fully spoken capabilities.

He hadn’t quite managed it. Greg had been keeping an English-to-German dictionary on him for a reason. Because, apparently, his spoken capabilities that had gone were the parts of his English which he rarely used.

Currently, he was on the couch with what he thought was a deposition—his badly abused reading glasses had been a casualty of the accident and the new prescription had yet to come in—but was actually just some old copied papers from when Franziska had been in middle school. Manfred wasn’t going anywhere near his job while he was like this, even if it meant everybody lying to him.

"Gregory," Manfred said, carefully from the couch, looking up at him, blue eyes slightly hazy still, and pursed his lips. "I cannot…read this any more, it is, it is nonsense." Greg nodded attentively.

"Of course. Would you like something?" It had been driving the man mad, being basically confined to bed or other horizontal positions while he got his equilibrium back, so Greg had been basically taking care of him—and then dumping his sixty-five-year-old partner on his daughter like a child foisted on a grandparent.

It made things easier.

Greg took a sip of coffee. Manfred’s face scrunched up in concentration, and then he came out with, “Where is the dingle dangle?”

Greg choked on his coffee, felt it go up his nose, coughed, choked, and saw Manfred start to get up— “I’m fine I just—wrong tube—” he managed, choking and coughing until he got it out of his nose and throat and then turned back to Manfred, his voice hoarse, “The what?”

"The dingle dangle." If he hadn’t already choked, he would have choked again. Manfred’s expression got tense and angry, and he raised both of his hands, gesturing incoherently to make a shape somewhat similar to—

Well, to a penis.

Greg was  _pretty_  sure Manfred wasn’t asking where his penis was.

"You know, the dingle dangle. The. The. The Fernbedeinung."

"The…Fernbedeinung?" Greg repeated. "Okay. The Fernbedeinung?"

"The Fernbedeinung. The little—you click. And it goes off and on." Greg nodded sagely, like he knew what the hell Manfred was talking about.

"All right, the…Fernbedeinung." He went over, picked up his dictionary, and carefully turned until he found the word that Manfred had just spouted at him.

His eyebrows pinched.

"You’re looking for the…" he paused, lifted off his glasses, and squinted at the word. 

Remote control.

Manfred was asking for the remote.

Well, dingle dangle was a new one.

Greg put his glasses back on and smiled. “Let me go find the thingy for you,” and then Manfred snapped his fingers triumphantly.

"Yes, that is it! Thank you, Gregory Edgeworth. I am looking for the thingy. Where is it?"

Greg snickered to himself and decided  _immediately_  to text Miles and Fran, because that was just. That was priceless.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an anna/kratos thing i wrote for rethi. forewarning—the tenses are really odd and strange and i had a hard time keeping them regular, so this is a drabble instead.

The human test subject that Kvar shows to them so triumphantly is beautiful. Not she could be—she already is.

She isn’t any older than maybe— _maybe_ —twenty, but Kratos would round down, she seems to be around sixteen. They’ve just begun the testing, so she has at least ten years left to live before they harvest her.

Kratos hates that word.

 _Harvest._  Like they’re growing plants.

Her human name is never told to them, just her number, but she looks at the three of them with wide brown eyes that touch something deep inside Kratos—she reminds him of Martel, when she was suffering from the toxicosis, when they were all young. After Mithos has seen enough, pleased with Kvar’s evil ingenuity, he leaves her outside with guards and they go into a secluded office to speak.

"Someone should kill that man," Yuan said, arms crossed under his breastplate, frowning, expression closed off. "He’s disgusting. I wish Mithos didn’t give him free reign to run his… _insanity.”_

"They’re well matched for each other," Kratos whispered, and Yuan shuddered.

"Someone should put them both out of their misery," Yuan murmured it so quietly that Kratos almost didn’t hear him. "I’m leaving. I need some air." Kratos nodded and waited until he left, and then he hesitated and wandered out himself, down to the main city of Derris Kharlan, the emotionless angels wandering aimlessly and Kvar’s little human sacrifice sitting alone on the floor, guarded by four Desians.

"Leave," Kratos said, and they left. Nobody got between a Seraph and what they were looking to get done. The little girl on the ground stopped and looked up when Kratos arrived, standing before her, arms crossed over his chest. She stared up at him from under dirty, badly-cut bangs, with sunken and bruised eyes, and her expression didn’t change.

"What’s your name, girl."

"A013," she replied, dead-voiced. Kratos paused, and his expression turned further down into a frown.

"Your  _name_ , girl. Not the number Kvar assigned you. What did your parents give you?” She stared at him, and licked her lips before she whispered,

"My Lord, My Lord Kvar has said I am not to use that name. He said it is unfitting of trash such as myself. He has hurt me if I have spoken it in the past."

"Kvar must answer to me. I have asked for your name. If he has an issue with this request, he can take it up with me—and I promise you, the one who will come out in that situation will be me." Kratos could crush Kvar beneath his bootheel any day of the week. The man was a disgusting ant of a being. "I am Kratos Aurion, of the Four Seraphim of Cruxis."

"I know that, My Lord."

"Just Kratos."

"I know that, My Lord Kratos." She stared down at the floor. "My Lord Kvar told me you would try to speak to me, to make me feel human."

"You are human, and he is a pain in the a—" Kratos cut himself off before he let that word slip. He had been spending too much time with Yuan recently, and this girl was far too young to hear language come out of his mouth. "Please, may I know your name."

She stared at him, and then finally whispered,

"My name is Anna."

Kratos smiled down at her, bent over, and stretched out his hand.

"And I am Kratos. It’s nice to meet you, Anna." She stared at his hand like it might bite her, and after a long moment of indecision, she reached out and took it, her thin fingers wrapping up around his wrist, and she almost yelped when he helped her up to her feet.

She wasn’t tall, but she was gangly—she was built to be tall, with a little more food she would be.

"Kvar dragged you all this way, so let’s get you something to eat."

"I thought Angels did not eat, My Lord Kratos," Anna said, staring up at him and glancing between his face and their linked hands with wide eyes. "That is what My Lord Kvar said."

"Just because we don’t have to doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy it," Kratos replied, easily. "And we were all human. Of a sort. Once." He began walking and Anna followed along behind him like a sad, neglected puppy, until he reached his own personal rooms and helped her inside.

Kratos made food without thinking, four thousand years of mechanical motion as he whipped something up. It ended up being just a simple meat stew, and she watched him silently the whole time before he served it up in a bowl and handed it to her. “Try that.”

"You should have added tomatoes," she said, and then looked up at him, eyes wide. "I am sorry. M-My Lord Kratos."

"I don’t like tomatoes," he replied, completely deadpan. She took the soup.

She ate it slowly, watered it carefully with the glass he handed her, but she ate the whole bowl, even when her face started to twist and she started to set a hand on her stomach. When she was done, Kratos smiled at her.

He only returned the girl to Kvar when he knew he had to. The monster scowled at him, Kratos scowled right back.

He was significantly more intimidating. Kvar backed down.

The next day he asked Mithos to have jurisdiction over Kvar’s experiment, and he said yes.

 

Kratos intentionally held his breath in Kvar’s base when he walked through it. He hated the place. But it was worth it, because eventually he found her. She was left in a cage by herself, naked even of the rags the other humans there were wearing, and hunched over.

He resisted the urge to rip the lock off of the door, and instead unlocked it. Anna looked up at him, her brown eyes bleary and bruised.

"Would you like to go for a walk?" he asked, and she shifted backwards to reveal her feet—they had been burned raw, red chafing around her ankles.

Kratos felt an awful coldness in his chest. Kvar had burned her.

"I’m healing, My Lord Kratos. I am not to leave my cell until I’ve healed." Kratos saw, for a moment, burns and half-healed slashes on her stomach. There was blood matted into her hair, and blood all over her thighs.

If she hadn’t been sitting there, crying and bleeding onto the ground, he would have found and impaled Kvar then and there. The man was sick. He was disgusting, unhealthy.

"He is seeing how much my body can withstand, My Lord Kratos."

Kratos clenched his fists and let out a very slow breath. He hesitated and then came over, knelt beside her. Anna flinched away before he could touch her. “Anna,” he said, quietly, “Can I touch you?” She shook, and he heard her crying quietly. “I won’t do anything to you. Nothing you don’t want. Just let me heal you.” Anna shook her head and sobbed,

"No, My Lord Kratos. If you heal me he’ll just do it again." She didn’t say anything, but Kratos knew that she meant he would be angrier the next time. He would do something worse. He grit his teeth. He crumpled the cloth of his pants, and then he let out a slow breath and sat there, unbuckling his uniform until the coat came off and he shook it free, holding it out to Anna.

"Put that on."

"I will ruin it, My Lord Kratos."

"Blood washes out. Let’s go for a walk." She stared up at him with her dark brown eyes, and she started to cry.

Later they sat outside on the grass, Anna wearing only his cloak, and cried long and low as the breeze brushed her hair. She ate the candy he had brought in his pockets with shaking fingers, chewing it slowly with her front teeth, her back ones sore.

Kratos didn’t need to see to know the blood on her lips was from a missing molar.

She fell asleep next to him, and he made up his mind to personally murder Kvar when everything was said and done.

 

Kratos, in the end, had broken Kvar’s arm twice for what he had done to Anna. He had threatened the man that if he ever saw it happen again, he would personally ruin him. Kvar stared at him with wide, shaking eyes, his mouth open as he panted for breath through his fear.

Kratos had meant every word of it, and when he came back after a year of sporadic visits to find her bloody and broken on the floor again, he lost it. Just.  _Lost it._  One minute he was calm and controlled, the Seraph; the next he was Kratos Aurion the human soldier and there was blood all over his hands and Kvar was on the floor, hardly breathing.

Anna was screaming.  _His_  name, Kratos realised, belatedly. And, belatedly, he realised that there were wild, ranging burns all over his chest.

Their eyes met, brown and brown, and she held out her scarred, small hands to him.

Kratos ran to her, grabbed her, and they ran together, holding hands tight, blood on her clothes and on his, until they were out of the base and he grabbed her, held her close, and the flying was freedom, her high laugh stars in his hair.

 

She was eighteen. He had stopped counting how old he was, when they sat in a dark clearing somewhere north of Asgard and he carefully healed himself, and then her, as best he could. Healed the burns and the gashes Kvar had left, cleaned her carefully, and then she fell asleep curled against his side, a broken beautiful shell of a woman.

The next morning, he cut off the low ponytail he had been wearing for years, used the blade of his dagger to saw his hair short, and then went to get them both clothes and food.

And then, they began to travel.

 

At twenty, Anna was beautiful. They were in Tethe’Alla again, skirting around different cities, stopping in Altamira for a night, standing on the beach, where he noticed it again. It had been some time.

Her hair looked almost ethereal in the moonlight, and the way she scrunched her toes into the sand, pushing it around, was oddly endearing. She had taken off her jacket, since it was only them, and he could see her silvery scars in the moonlight, all over her shoulders and back.

After a long moment, she turned to look at him, head tilted slightly. “What are you thinking about, Kratos?” Her eyes were bright, lively. So different from a broken sixteen year old girl left on a floor, a broken seventeen year old girl in a cell.

"You," he blurted before he could think, and immediately flushed slightly, looking off to the side. "I…apologise. That was out of line." Anna laughed, a quiet sound from years trapped in a cell, and leaned over to push him back on the sand, leaned on his chest, her long hair falling around their faces. Kratos watched her, his hands without thinking on her waist, and when she finally leaned down and kissed him she tasted like saltwater and sweetness, like candy and stew, like blood and fire and forgiveness.

 

They had shared bedrolls since their first night in an inn, when Anna had been too scared to sleep except tucked up next to his side, in a hot summer in Triet as they desperately got as far from Kvar as possible. She had tucked her body up against his and held both his hands around her waist and cried herself to sleep, and he had never denied her that place in his arms since—but after they kissed, that place was always different. They laughed and spoke into each other’s skin, curled tight and warm together, all murmured words and majesty. They would kiss, her lips dry and almost-chapped against his, her hands slid under the hem of his shirt—and once or twice, she managed to convince him to get his hands under hers.

Every time he felt the scars on her body he would back off immediately, apologise, and remember that when they kissed too deeply he could feel the spot where she was missing a tooth.

If he had intervened sooner, he could have saved her that pain. It haunted him.

It was two years of that before Anna finally stopped to look at him when she was changing in their room one night and he turned away, and she sighed, arms crossed over her chest—her breasts were visible through the thin cotton of her shirt. They were in Triet again, and she had never taken the heat well. “Kratos…”

"Yes?" He continued to stare at the ground, but he kept sneaking glances up at her, until Anna sat down on the bed.

"I love you," she says it like it’s the most matter-of-fact thing she could possibly say, like she’s said it a thousand times before, like it’s the same as saying hello or goodnight. "And I have for years."

Kratos stands there, awkward, in the middle of that tiny inn room and it’s like someone just broke every single wall standing up around him. He looks at Anna and doesn’t see a broken sixteen year old girl—he doesn’t see a girl covered in blood and eating sweets and crying in the forest.

He sees a beautiful woman, just like he did the first time he saw her. Only now she’s really a  _woman,_  grown up and in control of her life. She still has nightmares and she still has scars, but for the first time a week or two before she had gone out in public without a coat on and hadn’t even flinched from the stares at the scars and burns on her arms and wrists. And now she’s staring at him, and he can see all the marks that Kvar left on her skin and he doesn’t…feel guilt.

Kratos stares at his hands. Compared to him, she’s an infant. He still remembers losing his virginity during the Kharlan War, to a pretty girl with red hair in his unit, the night before an archer got her through the throat. He remembers the continents before they shifted. He speaks five different versions of the same language fluently. His hair’s been long, short, and everything in between—but now it’s messy and loose and falls all over his face and sticks up constantly no mater what he does with it but Anna  _likes_  it.

He can feel her watching him, and Kratos lets out a slow breath.

"Anna…I can’t."

"Why not?" There’s a note of stubbornness in her voice that he knows is going to be nearly insurmountable…but he has to try.

Kratos sighs and looks up at her—he can’t bare to join her on the bed wile he’s making this decision. “I’m too old for you. Whatever Kvar did, it’s partially my fault, I could have saved you and did not. I have too much baggage. I’m a killer, and I worked for the most insane man in creation. If we—if he—” Kratos doesn’t want to  _think_  about what Mithos might do. He’s been gone for years now; maybe the man’s forgotten. Doubtful. “If Mithos ever found out I don’t even want to think about what he might do to you.” He clenched his hands, and after a moment, he heard the quiet shift and whisper of her skirts as she stood up and walked over to him.

Anna took his hands in hers for a moment, and then slid her fingers up his arms, over the bare skin between his gloves and his shirt, and took ahold of his cheeks. She tilted his face up, looked into his eyes, and shook her head.

"Kratos, you’re too old for  _everyone.”_  He had told her, months before, years before, the truth had just come out all at once because lying wasn’t what he was meant to do. Not to her. “I’m an adult now. I know what decisions I want to make, what I want. I can make my choices, and I have—that choice is you.” She smiled, and rubbed her thumb over his cheekbone. “Nothing of what happened to me was your fault. You saved me, endangering yourself for it, because you felt it was the right thing to do.” She doesn’t say it, but Kratos knows the real reason he saved her.

He was in love with her.

"I have baggage too, Kratos. Plenty of my own." Anna’s eyes were almost sad as she stared into his own. "You’re a killer, but I don’t mind. You’re not a bad man. And if that man ever finds us…" Anna hesitated, and then pulled him down to kiss him, kissed him until Kratos’ hands were on her waist and he was opening his mouth against hers panting like a man starved for water, until she broke away, her lips slightly swollen and her cheeks stained, "We’d better have some good memories to back it up."

Kratos stared at her, and his heart was pounding in the back of his head. He wanted her like nothing he’d ever wanted in his long, too long, life.

"We’ll take it slow, and I’m not—I’m not going to—you know." he paused, swallowed around the word, and Anna smiled. "I don’t want to—take you. Not until you’re  _sure.”_

"All right," Anna acquiesced. "That’s good enough for me." She smiled, and it was this little radiant thing that made his heart do a twist-flip in his chest and he had to kiss her again, again, again until she pulled him down onto the bed and knotted her hands in his hair and kissed him back, harder and harder, all through the night.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the first seph/zel i ever wrote, for rethi. (im still really proud of this despite the fact that i wrote it pre finishing the games)

The first time they lay together, Sephiran rides him long and slow, and Zelgius watched the older man the whole time, hands soft on his waist. It is a crime, he thinks, that anybody so perfect should have to hide who they truly are. His wings, bound up for so many years are awkward and almost-broken, trailing limply, but they match his dark hair the way nothing else ever could, feathers shifting with an almost-inaudible rustle with every movement he makes. He leans nearly too far forward with every rock of his hips, and when Zelgius gets too close to the edge he whispers his sage’s name, over and over, broken and quiet, until Sephiran smiles and follows him, shaking, over the edge, his eyes squeezed tight, even as Zelgius manages to never once look away, in utter awe of what he is watching.

The last time they lay together, he presses Sephiran into the bed, face tucked in the joint of his shoulder, and fucks him deep and languid into the mattress, carefully keeping his weight onto his own haunches to keep from injuring his sage’s wings. Sephiran’s nails leave crescent-marks in his shoulderblades, and when he gets too close his voice becomes a broken moan that sounds almost,  _almost,_  like he’s singing. He tightens around Zelgius in ways nobody else ever could, he pulls him deeper, and without even meaning to Zelgius starts moaning his name, an unbroken litany into the man’s shoulder, gasping under every breath, and almost slips up with a half formed  _Leh—_  and he freezes until until Sephiran whispers, broken,  _Please, Zelgius_ and that’s all he needs, rolling his sage deeper into the mattress, strong fingers tight on his waist, and when he comes he’s whispering  _Lehran, Lehran, Lehran_  over and over again while his sage tightens around him, calling his pleasure in broken, breathy moans, drawing Zelgius close and deep, his broken wings twitching helplessly on the mattress below them.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> an extremely upsetting post aa timeline au where miles gets alzheimers, for harp. because she is a bad person.

It was like resurfacing from a long, deep sleep. Finally, though, Miles crested the surface, and blinked his eyes, heavy, into the open air of his hospital room. The monitor beeped slightly, and after a moment, he knew why he had woken up, and turned to look at Phoenix, sitting in the chair by the bedside, smiling with that tired of smile of his, and after a moment he reached out to take Miles’ hand.

"Hey handsome. How are you feeling?"

"I’m all right," his lips cracked. It had been a while since he had talked, and he glanced toward the bedtime. "Hand me my glasses and my water, would you?"

"Of course." Phoenix moved out of his range of sight and came back a moment later with the cup and his glasses, Miles adjusting them onto the bridge of his nose and carefully drinking his water as Pheonix helped him sit up.

"How go the arrivals?"

"Well, Ema just drove down to the airport to pick up Trucy and the kids coming in from Vegas, Apollo is still cleaning up at the office but will be here in about half an hour, Franziska and Maya are driving down from Kurain with Pearls now—" he glanced at the clock on the wall "And should be here, I’d say, in about an hour. I know Maggey is gathering up her horde and she said she’d be here in an hour and a half at most. Kay’s downstairs in the waiting room already." Miles paused, and nodded. His throat felt oddly tight. "Did I forget anyone?"

"I don’t think so." He reached out after a moment to hand Phoenix back his water, and the other man took his hand, carefully stroked the back of his fingers, held him close and safe. "That sounds like everyone." It was unfortunate that Gumshoe had ended up going ahead of him, but he hadn’t expected any less. "Seems oddly soon."

"Yeah." Phoenix was watching him. They’d had this conversation before, and every time it had ended the same way, but when the doctors had finally sat them down and said, in quiet voices, that it was Alzheimer’s, and they probably didn’t have too long before it got to the point where it was too bad to go any further. That, and stage-2 Prostate cancer and they had just looked at each other and decided that they knew what to do.

Phoenix had cried a lot.

Miles hadn’t expected anything less.

Leaning back against the pillows, he sighed. “Remind me of it all again?” Phoenix asked him what he was forgetting, but really, he needed to be asking the other man.

"You’ve got it, I think. Trucy’s kids are Richard, Zack, and Greg. I couldn’t even name the entire Gumshoe horde—" they had five children, just Gumshoe and Maggey, and then those five were already procreating to a great extent, "And nobody else has kids, so."

Miles stared up at the ceiling, and nodded.

"This is the last time," he said quietly to himself. He felt a pang in his chest. After this, it would just be Trucy, and Franziska, and Kay, and Phoenix.

Phoenix.

Phoenix would be there until the end.

Miles squeezed his hand tight, closed his eyes, and sighed.

At least the end would come before he forgot Phoenix. At least he would still have that, because his cancer was racing his Alzheimer’s to the finish line and one would kill him before the other made him lose what he had left.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a request for post jfa issue dealing with, from emma.

There wasn’t really time for it to sink in while everything was happening, but when Edgeworth had come back from the airport and found Phoenix sitting in the hotel lobby, they had just sort of looked at each other and then sat there together. It was late, well past midnight, and the hotel lobby was empty but for them, and the bellboy who was now the manager, who used to bring Edgeworth tea. Before he left America. Before he pretended to die. Before—

"Why," Phoenix finally said, quietly, and Edgeworth looked over at him, his face as carefully closed off as it usually was, bar one eyebrow slightly cocked upward.

"Why what?"

"Why did you do that?"

"I thought we talked about that already." Phoenix paused then, clenched his teeth, and sighed out his nose. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

"Not what I meant. I mean…sure, you needed to come to terms with whatever it means to be a Prosecutor. Okay. I get that. Good for you. I mean, I kind of had my method of finding out what it meant to be an Attorney several times as trial by fire. I understand that." Phoenix sighed and rubbed his jaw—he needed to shave, there was stubble growing in. He hadn’t had time to shave since…the night before the party for the Greatest Hero. While Maya had been kidnapped he had hardly eaten.

"Then what do you mean, Wright? I don’t want to debate life and job philosophy at midnight in a hotel lobby."

"Edgeworth, stop being an asshole and listen to me for once in your life," Wright snarled, unusually angry, and Edgeworth looked over, surprise written in the lines of his eyebrows.

Phoenix Wright had eyes that, when they looked at you the right way, could strip everything away and leave you with nothing but your core. Miles Edgeworth had experienced this plenty of times on his own, watching Wight in court, but it had been a long time since they had been turned on him in that way.

"Why did you pretend that you had killed yourself? I don’t care what you were trying to find or whatever, I couldn’t care less." His expression was closed off but his eyes burned. "Miles, why did you do that? Did you ever even think about what that did to me—to Gumshoe, to Ema, to the people that care about you? How do you think it was when the bellboy came running to me holding that letter, looking haunted, and I took it shaking from his hands and through you were  _dead?_ All the months of missing person searches, Gumshoe trying to find your body in Gourd Lake while Larry sat there and cried? The repeated warrants, the signs everywhere.” He took a deep, shuddering breath, and stared into Edgeworth’s soul.

"Did you know what it did to us? To one day be happy, that we saved Lana, that everything was going to be okay, and then the next day sitting there in the lobby of the Prosecutor’s office holding a letter and trying to figure out where you might have killed yourself so we could find your body and bring it back to give you a proper burial."

"I  _told_  the Detective after about three months—” Edgeworth snapped, heatedly, and Phoenix kept staring at him, and then finally picked up his jacket.

"That makes me even angrier." He shook his jacket out and stood up. "I’m going to go find the girls. When are you leaving for Germany again?"

"I was planning on heading out on Sunday but—" Miles was torn, half seated and half standing. He finally managed to reach out, to grab Phoenix’s sleeve. "Wright, please—"

Phoenix jerked his arm away. He wasn’t looking at Edgeworth any more.

"Thank you," he said, quietly. His voice was dead. "Without you and Gumshoe and Franziska Maya would probably be dead right now, and Engarde would be going free. I owe you a lot, and for her sake, thank you." One fist clenched. "Please don’t ever try to see me again, Miles."

It was like someone had just reached into his chest and torn it apart. Miles was sure that was his heart, splattered on the floor. Or was that his heart beating so loudly in his ears that he felt like he was going to burst?

"Phoenix…" was that his voice?

"I’m sorry. I can’t do this any more. I don’t know who taught you that, but when you run away you don’t run away and leave people thinking you’re dead. I went to your  _funeral,_ Miles. I stood there and said words I don’t even remember and then cried until I threw up afterwards. Your gravestone is right next to your Father, did you ever think about that?”

Miles kept hearing his heart beat. Was that his heart beating?

"Go back to Europe. I trust you, I trusted you, I never want to see you again." There was an undercurrent to his voice, tears. "Thank you for everything you’ve done, but I understand now. You have more there than here. I don’t mind." Miles couldn’t move he was rooted to the spot. "Goodbye, Edgeworth."

And then he turned, and walked away. Where had the Phoenix Wright, elated by Maya’s safe return, gone? Where had the Phoenix Wright that had said that simple word—trust—gone? Where was the man who had trusted in him absolutely in the court room, forgiven him, no matter what.

Miles just watched Phoenix walk out of the main room of the hotel and out of his life for another year. Just like that. Gone.

 

It wasn’t until a year later, when he found himself desperately holding Phoenix’s hand while he was unconscious in a hospital bed, that he realised why, and when Wright woke up Miles held him, and cried, and apologised over and over and over again.

He had never meant to do this, but at least he had someone who was still willing to take him back.


	12. the jugdment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> creative challenge fic :V

Perhaps, if they had been older, it all could have been averted. But, a fourteen year old broken by grief and powered by anger—that’s a recipe just for disaster. Mithos has too much in his hands, too much godlike knowledge, and it’s shared between them like a soul-crushing burden. There’s no escape, no letting it go.  
  
Once you’re immortal, there’s not a lot that you can do to escape. The cycle is forever. The sins haunt you to a grave you’ll never rest in.  
  
To be immortal is to face your decisions for eternity, to always suffer, and to know there is no absolution.  
  
The first time Mithos lets his façade drop, lets the naïve eyes and half-smile slip and reveal the cruelty in his brow and the grimace on his lips, Kratos recoils, and watches in mixed horror as his clenched fists and twisted face rain down light and lightning, his scream hoarse and furious. He’s too young, they’re all too young, and there’s nothing to stop them but their morals, and Mithos’ are gone, gone, gone.  
  
He knows then, one way or another, watching Mithos cycle from screaming, incandescent rage to hoarse, helpless sobbing, eyes wide in horror and the horrible, horrible knowing of what he has done, of what he has begun, of what remains for them. There is nothing but them for death, and when he tastes the ashes in his mouth, Kratos knows—he will not live to see the world come to peace. They have begun the war all over again.  
  
He takes Mithos’ shoulders, whispers the soothing words that only a teacher can whisper and still give true meaning to, and absolves him one last time.  
  
The day will come when everything that they’ve done will catch up to them, it’s only inevitable. But for now, as the glass cracks, as the realisation of endless never-letting-go dawns, remaining together is all that they can do.  
  
The shatter will come.  
  
For now, let them pretend it won’t.


End file.
